Orpheus, I am

The mythical Orpheus, singer and player of the lyre, charmed and transformed through the power of his song. As a singer-lutenist, Joel Frederiksen draws on an ideal cultivated in the Renaissance but reaching back to antiquity: through the union of word and music, to move the affections of the listener and touch the very soul.

Like Frederiksen today, Renaissance musicians often led international lives. John Dowland (1563–1626), the “English Orpheus,” travelled through Germany and Italy and served as court lutenist in Denmark. Taking Dowland and the singer-lutenists of the Renaissance as inspiration, Frederiksen brings together music from England, Italy, and France with songs from his own First Booke of Songs.

Orpheus, I am connects past and present through the intimacy of voice, lute, poetry, and song.

SOLO: Joel Frederiksen — Bass, Lute